House of Rougeaux(42)

“There’s no shame in it,” he said, “it’s a circumstance of birth, no more than that.” She looked up and met his eyes, the hazel color burning with a kind of incandescence. “But God gave us free will,” he went on, “and happenstance. I don’t believe in accidents.”



* * *



Hetty learned that Dax Rougeaux was the product of an alliance between a Frenchman and an enslaved African woman. Because of the Code Noir, wherein the child followed the condition of the mother, he was born enslaved, but he was manumitted by his father when he turned thirteen. His father had arranged for his apprenticeship with a saddler. But his parents were both gone now, taken by pneumonia during one bitter winter, and Dax was quite alone. He longed for a family of his own, something that Hetty had not yet dared to consider for herself.

Four months later, on their walk back to the Belcourt house, Dax was unusually quiet. When they arrived at the door he asked Hetty if she would mind taking another turn around the block, as he had something important to say to her. They walked slowly and Dax was thoughtful all the while. When they again neared the house, and Dax still had not spoken, Hetty stopped walking and put her hand on his arm.

“Dax,” she said, “if you don’t hurry up and tell me I’m going to faint from nerves.”

“Let’s go around once more,” he said. They continued walking. “I may have a chance to open my own shop,” he said, “in Montreal.”

Hetty felt a stab in her heart. “You are going away?”

“If I had my own shop, I could take care of you.” Now he looked into her eyes.

“Take care of me?” she whispered.

“Hetty, do you love me?” He gripped her hands. She did. Of course she did. “Will you be my wife?”

She wanted nothing more, but on one condition: her freedom. If there was one thing Hetty knew it was her own heart. She loved Dax, but she would not bring children into the world that could be owned by someone else.

“I will purchase your freedom,” Dax declared. “I will work without stopping.”

“I have some money too,” Hetty said, feeling as though she were floating in mid-air, as if the two of them were rising in a sudden summery updraft. “The lessons!”

“We shall do it together,” he said.

“Yes, together.”

Thérèse and Nicola Belcourt were at once in support. They had spied Hetty and Dax, curiously passing three times in front of the parlor windows, and plied her with questions. Marriage and all things related were foremost on their minds, as both had come out into society. And as their time in the North had acquainted them with abolitionist views, they did not consider the matter of Hetty’s sale an obstacle.

“We’ll write to Papa straight away,” said Thérèse.

“To be sure you’ll be married before I am,” pouted Nicola.

Hetty smiled, thinking that just for a moment she could finally have something that the Belcourt girls wanted.

The next year, 1833, brought, as Dax put it, Divine happenstance, when the King of England abolished slavery in the Canadas. Dax and Hetty were married, and went away to Montreal.

When Hetty said goodbye to Thérèse and Nicola, they all three wept. The Belcourt girls gave Hetty a set of four storybooks for children.

“Take care, Hetty,” said Thérèse.

“And write to us,” said Nicola.

Hetty promised she would.



* * *



In Montreal, Hetty and Dax learned a new city, in a vital climate of changing times. Beginning her life as a freed person, and as a wife, was a stark and continual wonder. As their children arrived, one by one, Hetty witnessed first-hand the exacting nature of life unfettered by the bitter dangers and constraints of enslavement. Whereas as a child Hetty had been made to stay quiet and follow directions at all costs, her own children wailed like wild animals when they were hungry, clung passionately to her legs when they needed comfort, and shouted out their desires or displeasure for all the world to hear.

Even as she and Dax guided them into civility, she could not help but love their ferocity, their greed for existence. Nor could she forget, as she watched them play and tussle, that countless children elsewhere in the world did not enjoy the same freedom and protection. As such, Hetty and Dax became involved in all manner of abolitionist activities, innovating ways to raise funds for organized efforts in Boston and New York. Time and again they received fugitives that had made it across the border, and needed a safe place to sleep, warm food to eat, and words of encouragement. Hetty and Dax taught the children that though their first duty was to the family, it was a necessity to extend their aid beyond.

Hetty named her children for her forebears. First there was Phoebe, then Olivie, then Abigail (after her aunt, Abeje), then Guillaume, named for her father, and then a child lost at birth. Lastly there was Josephine. In this way she could keep the names with her, even if the people they now represented were entirely different. Her children were miraculous to her. Even now, after almost twenty years of motherhood, of seeing them grow from babies into vibrant young adults, she still wondered where they had come from. She wondered the same about her husband, who was as sweet to her as he had been during their courtship. She wondered if she might one day wake up and find it all a dream.